WIEDERGEBURT Act VII: Chapter 40

Raul listened to the soft breathing of Sana and Lilac as he lay in bed, thinking about his parents. They had gone into closed-door training about one month ago. He wondered if they were doing okay. It was probably silly of him to worry about them (he was well aware that his parents were the most powerful people in the world), but as their son, he couldn’t help but hope they were doing well.

“They’ll probably be even stronger when they come out of training,” he murmured.

“Did you say something, Raul?” asked Lilac, lifting her head and looking at him with groggy eyes.

“I didn’t. Go back to sleep,” Raul said, leaning forward and pressing his lips to her forehead.

“M’kay. G’night,” Lilac murmured as she placed her back on his chest.

Raul continued to let his thoughts drift as Lilac went back to sleep. His parents were amazing people, to the point where he sometimes felt the pressure to be just as amazing press upon him. Many people were expecting him to be just as strong as his parents.

He did not think he would ever be able to match them, however. His father was a man who had mastered all the elements, learned how to use the concepts, and wielded godly power. His mother was similar. All of his mothers knew how to use concepts and had mastered the seven elements. Meanwhile, Raul was still struggling to learn how to use the water element.

ibly for the power they gained. They never had a choice. For them, it was gain power or die. That was the reason they had become so strong and why Raul lacked that strength. His life might have been hard recently, but his childhood had been very pleasant and filled with very few hardships.

“It’s not like it really matters,” Raul muttered to himself and closed his eyes. “I’m sure my parents will be around for a long time. I doubt I’ll bear the burdens they have.”

Just as those words left his lips, a massive explosion rocked the area around them. Raul shot up as Lilac and Shana shrieked in surprise. He leapt out of bed and raced toward the window, peering outside to find the barrier surrounding Vahn ripple.

“What’s going on?” asked Lilac.

“Are we under attack?” Sana asked.

“It seems like it.” Raul raced over to the dresser, grabbed a fresh pair of pants, a shirt, and his jacket. As he put on his clothes, he spoke to his girlfriends. “I want you both to find Feinrea and Stelys. Stick with them. I’m going to find Grandmother and see what’s going on.”

Sana and Lilac leapt out of bed, heedless of their own nudity, and struggled to put on their clothes. Raul was already finished by the time they put their panties on. He waited for them to finish dressing, then led the two outside, where they went their separate ways.

He expected people to be panicking, but most of them were merely pointing at the ripples along the barrier. Raul ignored them all as he ran toward the barracks. It was not a single building but a complex of structures that could house over a hundred thousand people. Father had this built after they retook Vahn, though he’d never been there himself.

Grandmother was there when he arrived. She stood in full armor alongside her three husbands, Medusa, Menes, and Quwain. Despite being in her sixties, the woman did not look a day over twenty-one. Her appearance would have fooled many if they didn’t catch a glimpse of her eyes.

“Grandmother! What’s going on?” Raul asked as he ran over to them.

“It seems we are under attack,” she said, stroking her jaw. “A massive army just arrived on our doorstep. They are about two billion strong.”

“Two… billion?” Raul rocked back on his heels.

“Pretty big, right? I was shocked too,” Dante said with a laugh. “Our patrols say they just appeared there as if by magic.”

“My guess is someone used the Concept of Space to transport them all here,” Rainer said.

“What… are we going to do?” asked Raul.

“This queen believes we will be safe so long as we hide behind this barrier,” Medusa interrupted before anyone else could. “But that would still leave a large army right on our doorstep. That is something this queen cannot abide by.”

“I agree,” Grandmother said. “We must destroy this army. They might not be able to reach us in Vahn, but they can still destroy the surrounding farmlands and everything else.”

Raul couldn’t help but agree with his grandmothers, and so he got dressed in some armor that was provided to him and joined them as more Spiritualists began streaming in. None of them were Valkyries. They were all with Lady Fray, who would be going up against the Sekbeist Overlord to buy Father and his wives time. That meant it was up to the humans here to defeat this army.

Over fifty thousand people soon joined them. Most of them were at the Third State of Spiritualism, but a few had managed to reach the Fourth State. This was all because of Mother’s alchemy pills. She had been mass refining them to help everyone reach new heights with their alchemy. Raul, Sana, and Lilac had been helping her, and now there wasn’t a single person under the Third State of Spiritualism.

Sadly, most of these people would never be able to progress further.

With the army now at their backs, Raul followed behind Hilda, Medusa, and the others to the rampart. Standing on the wide walls gave them a clear view of the Sekbeist army. Even though Raul was prepared for it, the sight of an army so large it surrounded their city in a sea of green still shocked him.

“There are… so many,” Raul muttered.

Dante whistled. “That’s a big army, all right.”

“I wonder if we can deal with this,” Rainer muttered.

Two more people came walking over to them as they stood there, Geirolf and Catalyna, who were both wearing armor and looked ready for battle. Raul wanted to ask where their kids were, but he knew. They were probably with Grandfather Stelys and Feinrea. That was where Raul would have sent his kids if he was about to go into battle.

“There are more Spiritualists coming,” Geirolf said to them all. “My last inspection suggests we have over two hundred thousand Spiritualists at our command. How would you like to divide them?”

Grandmother frowned for a moment, eyes narrowing as she studied the army. “Let’s not divide them this time. Our goal is not defense but attack. We will concentrate all of our forces here, lead an assault straight through one side of this army, and create a gap that will periodically widen the more enemies we kill.”

“That is a bold plan,” Medusa said. “This queen approves.”

“If that is your command, we will see it done,” Geirolf said as both he and Catalyna placed a hand against their chest.

Raul took a deep breath as he prepared himself for combat. The others beside him were also going through their own pre-combat rituals. Quwain was sharpening his sword, Dante was shit talking to his two brothers about who would kill the most Sekbeists, and Hilda and Medusa were merely staring down the enemy forces like they were an army of insects. Oh, how he wished he could have the confidence those two women did.

“Are you ready, Raul?” asked Grandmother.

“I am,” Raul said.

“I look forward to seeing how strong you have become,” added Medusa.

“Thank you, Grandmother Medusa.”

Medusa smiled, but then her attention was drawn away from Raul and toward Hilda, who seemed to be glaring at the woman for reasons Raul didn’t understand. He thought he saw sparks flying between the two… but that must have been his imagination. Yeah. That was it. He was totally hallucinating.

Hilda coughed into her hand, took a step forward, and raised her sword above her head.

“Spiritualists! Our enemy lies just outside this barrier! They seek entrance into our city! They seek to enslave our people and use them for fodder to increase their army! Will you let them do this?!”

The resounding “NO!” that echoed from the Spiritualists below the rampart was loud enough to make Raul’s ears ring.

“Then show them what you are made of! Show them what happens when you attack our home, our people, our loved ones!” Hilda spun around, flew into the air, and pointed her sword at the Sekbeist army trying to break through the barrier. “ATTACK!”

A rallying cry went up as those who had reached the Fourth State of Spiritualism flew over the wall while those at the Third State leapt over it. Raul was in the lead with Hilda, Medusa, Menes, and the others. He wasn’t the only one present. Earland and Aliya were on his left. Rainer and Rienhard were on his right. He even saw Alexis flying with Tungsten and Erica, who he didn’t think would join their battle since they were more or less retired.

With Hilda in the lead, their group flew through the barrier, then descended toward the ground. Hilda slammed into the ground and created a shockwave that knocked the Sekbeists off their feet. Medusa came next, striking the ground and create a wave of poison that billowed across a large expanse of space. The poison disappeared soon. However, what it revealed was a pile of corpses who had choked on her poison.

Raul descended alongside Earland and Aliya. He did not create a shockwave like the other two, but a wave of fire swept out from where he landed, spread across the ground, and ignited any Sekbeist who was too close. Thousand died in the blink of an eye.

And thus the battle was on.

Many of the Sekbeists battling with them were mere Grunts. They were the weakest of the slave caste. Their tiny green bodies were covered in white splotches, and their red eyes contained what seemed like insanity or at least very little intelligence. None of them were taller than four feet either. Not only were their bodies weak, but they could not wield the elements like the other classes could.

Raul spun around and lashed out with a kick that broke a Sekbeist’s neck. The grunt flopped to the ground, but he was already dealing with his next opponent, grabbing them by the face and dragging them across the ground. Their face ignited. Their body followed suit. Now a human fireball, Raul ignited all the fat in the Grunts body and tossed it into its fellows.

The Grunt exploded and took dozens with it.

Aliya and Earland fought side by side like a unit, covering each other’s weaknesses, though it didn’t seem needed. Several Elites tried to attack and were swept aside by Aliya’s tail. Then they were killed when Earland launched several wind blades that sliced their bodies apart like they were made of paper.

Getting his head back into the game, Raul looked up when he heard shrieks and realized there were Sekbeists riding on Demon Beasts above them. He was about to attack one of them when it was blasted out of the sky with lightning. A loud but human sounding roar echoed around him. That was when a Lightning Giant raced past him, taking down Demon Beasts by the dozens as he fired lightning bolts into the sky.

Since it looked like the sky was covered, Raul flew forward in search of more enemies. He found them near the front. Hilda and Medusa were tearing enemies apart. One had become a being of pure light as she sliced into her foes, while the other had become something like a liquid purplish poison cloud that swept over her enemies and killed them.

Raul flew past the contradictory duo, turned himself into a human fireball, and exploded against the Sekbeist army. Many of his foes were incinerated where they stood. Those outside of his range were not killed outright, but many of them were either knocked down or caught fire as their bodies combusted from the heat.

As the battle continued, strong enemies began showing up. Raul glared at the Warlord who roared and attacked him, hopping back to avoid the monster’s swinging axe, and then exploding forward. His left foot ignited as he spun around and launched a kick that severed the Warlord’s legs from his torso. His cauterized body flew in two separate directions.

That wasn’t the only Warlord Raul killed. There seemed to be a never ending stream of them. As the battle continued, Raul noticed that several of his companions were being dragged down by the sheer numbers of their enemies. He saw one man scream as he was buried underneath a pile of bodies. Raul launched a wave of fire that burned the Sekbeist but left the man unharmed. However, the man had already been killed, his neck twisted at an awkward angle.

More lives were lost as the battle continued. Raul fought as hard as he could, but neither he nor the others could be everywhere at once, and the fight was taking its toll on those who hadn’t reached the Fourth State of Spiritualism. Raul was fine. He might not be able to draw upon the limitless power of light like Grandmother or the earth like Medusa, but he had enough Spiritual Power in his reserves to keep going. At the same time, he was but one of maybe two or three hundred who had reached this level of power. Most everyone else was only at the Third State of Spiritualism.

And there were billions of Sekbeists.

“It looks like you’re fighting hard, huh Raul?” a voice suddenly said behind him.

Raul blinked, spun around, and stared in shock at the green-haired man standing behind him. Garbed in form-fitting elastic pants, a light blue under shirt with a triangle-shaped cutout that trailed down to his knees, and high-collared vest that had no sleeves, the person standing before him was someone Raul would know even if he lost his memories.

“Father?! You’ve returned!” Raul exclaimed.

“We actually just got out of closed-door training,” Father admitted, his voice casual like he wasn’t currently standing in the middle of a battle.

“We? Then Mother and the others…”

“They are currently heading over to help the Valkyries,” Father admitted. “I just noticed you and decided to offer a hand. You want me to take care of these people, or do you think you’ve got it?”

“Take of…? Can you really take care of all these Sekbeists?” Raul asked, unable to believe what he was hearing.

“I can. Do you want me to?”

“Well, if you can, it would definitely help us out…” Raul began slowly.

“Right. Okay. Just leave this to me.”

Father nodded once as if that had decided things, raised his hand, and then snapped his fingers. And that was it. The moment he snapped his fingers, every Sekbeist within sight vanished. Raul felt like he missed something. He looked around, rubbed his eyes, and then looked around some more. Was he dreaming?

“You’re not dreaming,” Father said. “The Sekbeist are gone. I erased them.”

“Erased… what…? How…?

“I’ll answer those later. Anyway, I need to get going. Fray is currently fighting the Sekbeist Overlord, and I need to lend her a hand.”

Father didn’t stick around after that, disappearing as quickly as he arrived, and leaving so many confused people in his wake. Raul looked around. All of his compatriots were staring in confusion at the battlefield now bereft of enemies. He understood how they felt. It was all so anti-climactic.

“Raul… what just happened?” asked Hilda, coming up to him with a puzzled expression.

“That’s what I would like to know,” Raul admitted with a sigh.

***

The first person to attack was the Sekbeist Overlord, but I didn’t stay in place either, rushing forward to clash with the monster responsible for all my suffering. His ethereal black sword clashed against my white one. The expulsion of power that erupted between us caused the ground to split, tore the atmosphere asunder, and forced us apart. We landed on the ground several meters away.

“Your restored your arm,” the Sekbeist Overlord said. “I could have sworn I removed it.”

“It’s a new arm,” I admitted.

“So I see. You’ve mastered the Concept of Creation, have you? No wonder you are so much stronger than before.”

“That’s not all I’ve mastered.” I gave him a grim smile. “I hope you’re ready to see what I can do now. Oh. I should mention that I’m not your only opponent.”

“What?”

Kari appeared underneath the Sekbeist Overlord and thrust her ransuer into his chest. Time slowed down, cracks appeared around them, and then the Sekbeist Overlord was blasted backward. He crashed into the ground like a meteorite.

This did not put him down for long. He stood up and roared, unleashing several beams of darkness that curved through the air and tracked Kari, but she twirled the ranseur around and deflected all of the attacks.

That was when I came in, swinging my massive ruler, which condensed the energy to create with the spatial energy. Those were the two concepts I could use right now since my wives were using the other ones. My ruler crashed into the Sekbeist Overlord.

A loud cracking sound echoed around us as he was listed off his feet and flew into the air. He stopped himself from flying further, glared down at me, and then looked at his cracked armor. With a click of his tongue, he restored his arm. Then he raised his hand. His Spiritual Power surged as he created a massive black ball of pure annihilation, which he threw at us.

“I’ve got this,” I said to Kari.

Shooting forward like an arrow, I pointed my ruler right at the black sphere and thrust it forward, plunging into the massive attack. I felt my skin dissolving like I was swimming in acid. Creating a layer of conceptualized armor with the Concept of Creation, I managed to regenerate my skin and protect myself. Then I was at the center of this attack, where I imagined a massive black hole appearing.

Black holes are regions of spacetime where gravity was so strong that nothing—not even particles or electromagnetic radiation—could escape from it. Some people thought that black holes were something created with the Concept of Negation. I understood the truth. It was actually a compact mass with a very high gravitational field that caused a deformation in spacetime.

I quickly ejected myself from the massive attack, which was already starting to warp as it absorbed the negation energy. Strange eddies and distortions appeared before the attack was consumed. The black hole disappeared seconds after its work was done.

“It seems your powers really have grown!” The Sekbeist Overlord scowled, his expression truly hideous. “Even Wodan could not create a black hole with that much power.”

“That’s not all we can do,” Kari shouted from above our enemy.

The Sekbeist Overlord looked up just as Kari descended, slamming a compressed white sphere into his face. That sphere was actually a star. It was an object created from plasma held together by its own gravity, but the one in Kari’s hand was unstable, and the moment she slammed it into the Sekbeist Overlord, it detonated with enough power to wipe out a small moon.

I grimaced and waved my hand, creating a spatial tear that absorbed the excess energy and sent it into space. Where? I didn’t know, but it was important not to let all that power and radiation touch the earth.

Kari appeared next to me from within a dimensional rift and winked. “How was that?”

“I think you need to be more careful,” I said. “That could have hit our planet, and then where would we be?”

“Well… yeah… that’s true,” Kari admitted. “I guess I didn’t think of that.”

“Just keep that in mind,” I said with a sigh.

“Ugh…”

High above us, the Sekbeist Overlord became visible as the remaining radiation and power dispersed. He was injured. The entire left side of his body was gone, but it quickly reformed from motes of negation energy that gathered together. I frowned when I saw how his body became restored within seconds. Would we have to destroy him in a single attack to kill him? That would be a tall order.

“You two are indeed power,” he admitted, growling. “However, it is still useless. You cannot defeat me. It is impossible to defeat that which doesn’t exist on this plain.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said.

Kari and I attacked at the same time. We struck him in a pincer manuver, me on the left and her on the right. The Sekbeist Overlord was able to block both our attacks. A large black wall appeared before me. Meanwhile, he grabbed Kari’s ransuer with his bare hands and tossed her away. I tore through the wall seconds later, but he was already meeting my clash.

I lashed out with fists and feet, and he blocked each of my attacks. Small explosions marked where our limbs collided. While he was dealing with me, Kari recreated her ransuer from compressed creation energy, making a star that had taken the shape of a weapon. Before the man could react, she swung her blade and severed his head from his shoulders. For a moment, I thought that would be enough to kill him.

That moment caused me.

I dropped my guard, and the Sekbeist Overlord slipped a punch through my arms and into my torso. Blood spewed from my throat as I slammed into the ground. My back hurt, but it quickly healed as I channeled Spiritual Power into my understanding of creation. Now that I knew how to use this power, recreating my bones before they had been broken was easy.

Kari had flown back and was engaged in a vicious free for all with our mutual foe. I didn’t want her to fight this guy alone, so I flew up, twisted around, and buried my foot in his gut while he was distracted. The Sekbeist Overlord roared as he swatted Kari away. Then he grabbed my foot, spun around, and flung me away. I had no idea how far I flew, but I knew it must have been far because I slammed into the side of a mountain.

I disappeared within a gate before the crumbling mountain could bury me and emerged from another gate next to the Sekbeist Overlord, who was gritting his teeth, arms crossed in front of him as a massive white beam tried to blast him into oblivion. Kari was really going overboard with the Concept of Creation. It looked like she had created a star, forced it to go nova, and compressed the energy into a beam.

Since I couldn’t use creation energy right now, I created a dimensional ruler and unleashed a crescent blade that struck the Sekbeist Overlord in the back. He roared and his guard slipped. The compressed beam slammed into him, and this time he was the one who went hurtling backward.

“Nice hit,” I said with a grin.

“Couldn’t have done it without that distraction,” Kari said, smiling as she raised her hand.

We clapped our hands together before sensing the presence bearing down on us. Turning, the two of watched as the Sekbeist Overlord appeared from within a whirlpool of dark energy. I wondered about that, but I didn’t have time to really consider the power he used before he was snarling at us.

“You two really have proven yourself. I’ll admit it. I underestimated you. It seems I have done that a lot. But that ends here!”

Neither of us had a chance to really respond. The Sekbeist Overlord raised his hands, and darkness seeped from his fingertips, infusing the sky and turning it black. Well, that was what it seemed like at any rate. However, I recognized what this was. It was a boundary field like the one that what’s his name Sekbiest used when we were on Vindenket. It was basically like a barrier created from a concept. In many ways, it was like a dimension separated from our current one, and the person who created it was virtually a god.

“This is a pretty powerful boundary field,” Kari muttered.

I nodded. “I don’t think I’ve seen a boundary field this strong before.”

“You two should feel honored. Not even Wodan and those other Overlords were powerful enough that I felt the need to use this. Die knowing that you forced me to use on of my trump cards.”

“This princess will not let you use such a dangerous power around her.”

“What?!”

The boundary field suddenly disappeared and the Sekbeist Overlord could do nothing more than gawk. Kari and I looked to our left, where Lin flew forward on wings of darkness. They flapped despite not actually giving her any lift. She only created those wings because it made flying easier if she imagined herself with them.

“Sorry this princess is late. Leblos was a little tougher than she expected,” Lin said.

“It’s fine.” I waved her apology off. “We haven’t really suffered much… though the same could be said for our enemy.”

This battle had been one in which neither side was truly injured, though a lot of damage had been done to our surroundings. I was trying my best to protect our planet while fighting. That was proving difficult, however, and the ground below us was filled with cracks, cracks, crevices, and gaping holes. I suppose it was a good thing this battle was so far from where everyone else was located.

“You!” the Sekbeist Overlord growled at Lin, spittle flying from his mouth. “How did you do that?! How did you disrupt my boundary field?!”

“What? That little thing? That was easy to disrupt.” Lin stuck out her tongue, held out her hand, and created a small swirling vortex out of negation energy. “If you strike a boundary field in the right place with the same conceptual energy, it will break easy peasy. Didn’t you know that?”

The Sekbeist Overlord was stunned. “You can… use the Concept of Negation?!”

“That’s right,” Lin said, crossing her arms and laughing with her mouth closed. “Hm hm hm. This princess has long since mastered the Concept of Negation and passed her powers onto Darling and her sisters.”

“You… what?”

I would admit that it was very pleasant to see the Sekbeist Overlord looking completely flabbergasted, but I didn’t want to give him any time to recover. We had to strike him fast and hard to keep him from regaining his footing in this battle. That meant it was time for round two.

***

Gorrick grinned as he blasted another Valkyrie from the face of this planet. These women might have been considered strong to some, but to him, they were weak as shit.

The ground around him was littered with bodies. While he had killed some of them by simply erasing their existence, he’d killed quite a few with his bare hands. He enjoyed listening to the sound of their necks breaking, their screams when he snapped their limbs like they were dead trees.

“It really is unfortunate that we have to kill you,” he said to the woman currently in his grasp. He didn’t think she was listening, as her body had already gone limp, but he continued anyway. “We had originally planned on using you Valkyries to create more of us. You know we Sekbeist can’t reproduce. We have to be created through a very laborious process, but only you Guddomelig have enough Spiritual Power to create Lords like me. But now we have to kill you all. Well, I’m sure we’ll eventually find another race that can replenish our forces. Maybe on the next planet. Ha ha ha.”

“GORRICK!”

The loud scream tore through the air before a figure descended from above. Gorrick let go of the woman and leapt back, though he was not fast enough to avoid damage, and he screamed in surprise and pain as his arm was removed at the elbow. Glaring as he grasped his arm, Gorrick looked at the person who had shown up.

“Cunt! That fucking hurt!”

“Good! It was supposed to hurt, you fucker!” Chloe snapped. She stood in front of the unconscious woman. Gorrick considered attacking when she turned her head to study the woman, but she wasn’t leaving herself open. She would know if he attacked and respond.

“Tch. So you’ve come back for round two, eh?” Gorrick regained his composure and grinned. “Haven’t had enough of a beating, I take it? That’s fine. That’s fine. Old Gorrick is here to administer your beating with gusto. Just leave everything to him.”

“Fuck you,” Tora said, cracking her neck several times. “I didn’t come here for anything of the fucking sort. I’m just here to kill you before I go and provide my husband with backup against your fucking boss.”

“So that brat I met in the temple is your husband now? And he’s fighting My Lord? Heh. You might as well not bother going to back him up. Even if you could beat me, it wouldn’t matter. Your husband is already dead.” Gorrick’s grin darkened. “Of course, I don’t plan on giving you the chance to join him. I might not have prepared my special mind enslavement ritual, but I don’t need a ritual to kill you.”

“Are you gonna keep flapping your fucking gums, or are you going to fight me?” asked Tora. Gorrick growled and was about to retort, but then the woman disappeared and, before he could respond, something sharp and powerful slammed into his face. He stumbled back as Tora spoke again. “Because if all you’re going to do is talk, then I’ll just kill you right here and now.”

Gorrick growled as he felt his cheek, already swelling from the woman’s punch, and his eyes quickly saw red. This was the first time in a very long time that he’d been injured like this. Not in over five thousand years had he ever suffered such humiliation. In fact, the only person who had ever made him feel pain like this was Ende, who had once given him a scar that ran diagonally across his chest.

“Bitch! It’s time for you to die!”

“Bring it!” Tora snapped.

Black flames leapt from Gorrick’s hands and flew across the battlefield, consuming numerous bodies and reducing them to nothing. Tora didn’t appear concerned, however, not at all. Gorrick scoffed at how overconfident this woman was. Then the flames reached her.

He stopped scoffing.

His eyes bulged in their sockets.

The flames that he had created, which could erase everything it touched, was not burning Tora. It swirled around her body, but it did not touch her. There was a two or three meter radius around her body that remained pristine.

“What… how… how are you doing this?” asked Gorrick.

“Are you surprised?” Tora said as the black flames parted before her. Gorrick thought he saw a simmer of energy, but most of his attention was focused on watching the woman walking out of the flames. “The Concept of Negation is a pretty terrifying power. The ability to erase something is frightening. But it’s not like it’s all-powerful either. I learned from sparring with Lin that you can overpower any technique simply by pumping more Spiritual Power into your technique than your opponent.”

“So you know how to deflect my attacks. Big deal.” Gorrick narrowed his eyes in anger. “Even if you can deflect some of my attacks, it doesn’t mean you can do so to all of them!”

Now that he knew what she had done, Gorrick pumped even more Spiritual Power into his next attack. He created a spear and tossed it at Tora. The woman looked like she was going to dodge, then changed her mind at the last moment. She clicked her tongue and created an ethereal-looking sound out of whispy energy. Gorrick had no idea what it was, but he didn’t let that concern him—at least, he didn’t until she swung her sword, sliced the spear apart, and unleashed a crescent blade of energy that flew toward him.

“WHAT?!”

Gorrick leapt out of the way, then screamed when his other arm was severed, this time at the shoulder. He bit his teeth to avoid crying out in pain. In his distracted state, he didn’t even see Tora move until she was right in front of him.

She swung her leg and kicked him in the chin.

“That was for my Lady Fray!”

Leaping into the air, she spun around, body acting like a fulcrum as her foot descended onto the junction between his shoulder and neck.

“That was for my mom!!”

Gorrick screamed as he struck earth. The world around him was pulverized. He hacked and coughed, blood splattering against his lips and dripping down his chin. It hurt. He’d never felt anything so painful before. What was… with this woman? Why was she so strong?

Tora descended from the ground and tried to slam into him with her feet, but Gorrick was not about to stick around. He scrambled out of the way and flew backward. This battle was way too much for him. He wasn’t going to stick around and let himself get killed by this blasted woman!

And yet, before he could run off, a hand latched onto his neck. Gorrick panicked. He kicked the person behind him, unleashing a blast of death energy from his foot. The other person grunted and let go. He scrambled away, spun around, and eyed the woman glaring at him like a frightened rat staring into the eyes of a hungry cat.

“L-Listen… we can… talk about this,” Gorrick said. “There is no need for violence…”

“No. There is definitely a need for violence,” Tora interjected. “I need to kill you before I can move on. This next attack is going to be for me.”

“Do-don’t do this! I can… I can help you! I have… knowledge! I know all about our Lord! I can tell you his weakness! You want to know his weakness, don’t you?”

“Even if you told me his weakness, I don’t think I could trust your words. Time to die.”

“NOOO! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”

Without his arms, Gorrick could only use his feet to fight, and he was not very good with his feet. He created a dimensional portal and leapt through—only to wind up staring into the angry eyes of Tora.

“You… you hijacked my portal!” Gorrick screamed in shock. “What are you?! How did you do that?!”

Tora didn’t answer him. She raised her hand, now coated in black flames. Gorrick easily recognized the Concept of Negation surrounding her fist. That was more than enough power to kill him in his weakened state. More importantly, how was she able to use the Concept of Negation like this?! Hadn’t her kind forbidden anyone from learning it?! Damn it! No one told him that he would have to deal with someone like this!

Gorrick tried one last trick, creating a crackling sphere of darkness from his mouth and firing it at the woman, but it slammed into a dimensional rift and disappeared. That was when he realized she was not the one who had hijacked his portal, though it was too little too late. Her fist slammed into him and his body evaporated like hot water on a clear summer day. His last thoughts were on how he should have just killed this woman when he had the chance.

***

Tora looked at the ground where Gorrick had been standing. It was just a black patch of land now. She had used the vaunted Concept of Negation, which these Sekbeist were so proud of, to kill the person who murdered her mother. Her revenge was complete. She had finally avenged her mother and could now truly begin her new life with Eryk… and his other women. She sighed.

Never imagined I’d have to share a man, but I guess it’s not too fucking bad. At least I can count on them for help when I need it.

She looked up and turned around, nodding toward the smiling figure standing a few meters away. Tora had no idea when this woman had appeared. Was it toward the end of the battle? Halfway in? There really was no telling, but it looked like she had healed all the Valkyries who were still alive, so Tora could at least take an educated guess.

“Thank you for the help,” she said.

“It was no trouble.” Chloe’s smile was so wide that she had to close her eyes. “After sharing our everything with each other, helping you out was the least I could do.”

“D-don’t talk about sharing everything together so casually! How brazen can you be, woman!” Tora snapped, stuttering.

“I can be very brazen, but you already knew that, didn’t you?” Chloe asked.

“Ya damn fucking masochist,” Tora scowled to hide her blush. “I’m going to get back at you one of these days.”

“That sounds like it would be very pleasant, but for now, I think we should assist Master with his fight against the Sekbeist Overlord,” Chloe said.

Tora groaned at how insufferable this woman was. Ever since they began dual cultivating, Chloe had become bolder and bolder, and now she always did her best to rile the rest of Eryk’s wives up all for the sake of receiving punishment from them. Some of them like Kari were more than happy to “punish” her, but Tora was not one of those people. She preferred regular sex with her man, thank you very much.

“Let’s… let’s just go,” Tora muttered.

“Of course, Mistress Tora.” Chloe clasped her hands together and bowed. Tora just sighed.

***

The Sekbeist Overlord wasn’t just a powerful Spiritualist who had mastered the Concept of Negation, he was a monster at hand-to-hand combat.

I came at him with a straight jab, rotating my entire hip. It was blocked by my enemy’s forearm. The Sekbeist Overlord ignored the shockwave our impact caused, twisted his arm around to redirect my punch, then grabbed it within an ironclad grip. I tried to yank my arm back. This was a newly made arm and I didn’t want it getting ripped off so quickly, but the Sekbeist Overlord’s grip was too strong and his Spiritual Power was interfering with my use of both element and concept.

It was a good thing I wasn’t fighting alone.

“Let Darling go!”

Lin came in like a bolt of lightning. She swung her tail at the Sekbeist Overlord’s back, though he merely spun around and maneuvered me to act as a shield. Too bad for him Lin could also use the Concept of Space. Her tail phased through the space where my body was, phased back in after bypassing me, and slammed into the Sekbeist Overlord’s gut.

“Oof!”

The Sekbeist Overlord grunted as he let go of me and stumbled backward. I spun around on the balls of my feet and snapped a kick that caught him in the chest—he was too tall for me to reach his chest. My foot struck the corded muscles of his pectorals and sent him further back, skidding along the ground.

That was the moment Kari and Fay appeared, attacking him in a pincer from the left and right. Kari thrust out her spear and slammed her foot into the ground as she leaned forward and put all her weight into a punch that distorted the very atmosphere.

The Sekbeist Overlord scowled as he vanished.

“He’s behind Fay!” Lin shouted.

Kari and Fay continued on like they were going to strike each other, but then Fay tucked forward into a roll and Kari continued on with her thrust, striking the Sekbeist Overlord’s chest. Sparks flew as her starburst ransuer ground against his negation armor. Creation and Negation fought for dominance, and it was sadly negation that won. Kari clicked her tongue and leapt backward as her ransuer shattered against his chest plate.

“Foolish girl! Do you think I’ll let you escape?!”

“You won’t lay a hand on her!” a new voice said.

“What?!”

The Sekbeist Overlord’s eyes widened as space folded around him—and then he found himself standing several meters away from Kari. It was such an instantaneous thing that I doubted he could really understand what happened. And he wasn’t given time to contemplate it either. A figure with large wings and a thick tail descended from above, spinning around as she slammed her tail on top of his head, sending him straight into the ground.

Siv leapt back, disappeared through a spatial portal, and reappeared from another portal next to me.

“Took care of your Sekbeist?” I asked.

“Yup.” Siv nodded once. “Wutend is dead.”

“Good. That’s one less enemy to worry about.”

“How are you all holding up?” She turned her glimmering green eyes toward me. They were practically glowing with power now, radiating a quiet confidence.

“Decently,” I muttered. “We haven’t been able to truly injure this man, but he hasn’t been able to injure us either.”

As Siv and I spoke, Fay and Kari both appeared before the Sekbeist Overlord as he stood to his face. They had warped there. The black remains of the dimensional rift they used to transport themselves was disappearing before my eyes.

The two attacked our foe with a ferocity that would have stunned anyone else. Kari created a new ranseur, though this one looked almost translucent instead of like a star shaped into a polearm. She spun the weapon around her body and thrust it at the Sekbeist Overlord, who tried to block but found his body frozen the moment the weapon touched him. It was barely a split second of pause. The Concept of Negation quickly ate away at the time lock she placed him in, but that was enough time for Fay to slice his body in half with a dimensional kick—a kick that severed dimensions.

Both halves of the Sekbeist Overlord flew away form each other, but darkness soon shot out of the legs and torso, forming a new leg and a new torso. Now there were two Sekbeist Overlord’s, and they attacked Kari and Fay.

“Come on,” I said to Siv.

I raced toward the battle between Fay and her Sekbeist Overlord since I spotted Lin coming up behind the one fighting Kari. Fay was using the Concept of Dimension, Kari was using the Concept of Time, and Lin was channeling the Concept of Negation, which only left the Concepts of Life, Death, and Space to us.

Siv created a portal that the two of us rushed through. It brought us right to the Sekbeist Overlord, who was so busy engaging Fay in martial combat that he couldn’t do squat when I leapt into the air and kicked him square in the face. Black miasma gushed from his broken nose. In that same instant, as he was stumbling backward, Siv struck him with a mighty fine tail slap. The attack blasted him off his feet and sent him skidding along the ground.

He landed on his knees some distance away, grimacing as he cracked his nose back into place and stood up. The malice in his eyes was something to behold. His frustration was mounting.

“How is it that you have become so powerful?! I don’t understand!”

“What in the nine realms makes you think I’ll ever tell you how we became so powerful?” I asked. “Are you stupid?”

“WHAT?!”

“Let’s go, you two!”

“Right!” Fay and Siv said at the same time.

We rushed forward to quickly engage the Sekbeist Overlord, who scowled as he split himself into two more. It was odd watching him do this, like some really strange form of osmosis, but we didn’t pause in our charge.

Siv reached her opponent first by making liberal use of the Concept of Space. She practically teleported in front of the man and slammed into him with her now massively clawed hand. The Sekbeist Overlord’s intense scowl as he blocked her attack was second only to the way his own hand became deformed. It took on a shape that was not all that dissimilar to Siv’s hand, but it was even larger and covered in gleaming red symbols. Siv bit back a yelp when their hands touched. Black miasma was rising off her hand.

I was unable to watch further as I focused on my own opponent, the other Sekbeist Overlord clone, creating a massive ruler that was at least half a meter longer than I was tall. It was made from compressed death energy. I swung the weapon with everything I had, but it was blocked by the Sekbeist Overlord’s hand. Cracks appeared in my weapon. I grimaced and leapt back before compressing life and death energy together, coming back in, and thrusting my ruler forward.

My weapon penetrated the Sekbeist Overlord’s stomach, burst out of his back, and became buried to the hilt, but my attack didn’t seem to do any damage. I dodged a swipe at my head, letting go of my weapon and leaping backward. The Sekbeist Overlord snarled as he grabbed my ruler, still buried in his stomach, and consumed the object with the Concept of Negation.

“You should just give up,” he growled. “It does not matter how strong you and your brood have become. You cannot defeat someone who embodies nothingness.”

I did not know exactly what this man meant, but he did have a point. We had been fighting the Sekbeist Overlord for quite awhile now. Yet even though we had something of an edge over him thanks to our numbers and mastery of all seven concepts, we had not been able to inflict any lasting damage. It wasn’t that he healed. It was more like no damage was done to him at all.

Like he was negating the damage before it happened?

No, that wasn’t quite it.

It was something else, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

The Sekbeist Overlord surged forward and I no longer had time to contemplate what this feeling was. I recreated my ruler and blocked his first attack, a heavy swing that staggered me. Rather than let myself fall, I flowed with the blow, spinning around and swinging my ruler from the ground up. My attack slammed into a knee the Sekbeist Overlord raised. It was a powerful attack that forced him back, but his knee remained perfectly unharmed.

“You… haven’t lost any Spiritual Power despite being split in two,” I said at last, narrowing my eyes. “That should not be possible…”

Dark chuckles emanated from the Sekbeist Overlord. “It is perfectly possible. I am nothing. Nothing is me. I embody the beginning and the end. When one has this kind of power at their fingertips, it is only natural that they would have limitless power.”

Scowling as I rushed forward, I once more engaged the Sekbeist Overlord in a free for all brawl, his clawed hands versus my ruler. Neither of us really had an advantage. Even though the concept I was using was weaker than his Concept of Negation, I also had nearly limitless reserves of power. I drew in Spiritual Power from the earth, the air, and the sun, using it to bolster my reserves and keep going long after anyone else would have given up.

“You’re tenacious if nothing else. You and those bitches of yours.”

I twitched. During our next bout, just as he swung his arm like he was expecting it to clash against my ruler, I let my weapon disperse, ducked under his attack, then came back up and popped him in the chin with a powerful uppercut. I didn’t use a concept to attack him this time. Just my fist. Black miasma wafted from my injured hand, but I had the satisfaction of watching my opponent fly through the air in a parabolic arc before he slammed onto the ground.

“Call my wives bitches again,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “Go on. I dare you.”

Leaping into the air as the Sekbeist Overlord picked himself up, I descended and prepared to slam my knees into his chest, but he rolled out of the way, came back up, and caught me in the side with a claw swipe. I screamed as his attack sent me flying, rolling across the ground. The burning from his attack was intense. It felt like something was eating away at my flesh, and I was forced to burn through a lot of Spiritual Power to stop it from doing so.

I was able to flip onto my hands and knees just in time to see the Sekbeist Overlord lumbering over to me. Bunching my muscles together as I prepared to meet his assault, I became surprised when a massive black sword nearly four meters long cut him down the middle.

“Hands off my fucking husband, fuckface!”

Tora’s sword slammed into the ground after splitting the Sekbeist Overlord in half, then creating a crevice about two meters wide and several deep. The two halves of the Sekbeist Overlord once more burst with black miasma. The miasma formed the other half of their bodies, and now there were two more Sekbeist Overlords to face.

This was getting ridiculous.

Chloe flew in from the side and slammed her heeled combat boots into one of the Sekbeist Overlords. Her attack deformed his face and blasted him off his feet. Meanwhile, Tora raced over to me.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, standing up.

“Good. Now tell me what the fuck is going on here?”

“Can’t you see for yourself? This guy has the ability to duplicate himself and is doing his best to separate us.” I gestured toward all the battles taking place—Fay and Siv, Kari and Lin, and now Chloe were all battling one Sekbeist Overlord. “It’s a good strategy. We’re limited in how much of any one concept we can use at the same time. If we all fought using the same concept, it would destabilize the world. I think he knows that and is separating us so we can’t bring our full might to bear.”

Concepts were incredibly powerful laws that governed all worlds everywhere. By that same token, because they were so powerful, they could also pervert the world when used, destabilizing the world in ways that none of us could imagine. Maybe it would just be something simple like making the area around us completely inhospitable, but it might also be something serious. The last thing I wanted to do was accidentally destroy the very world we were fighting to protect.

“Then let’s not hit him with just concepts.”

“You’re suggesting we use the elements?”

“Fuck yeah, I am.”

“It’s worth a shot.”

Our own Sekbeist Overlord opponent was coming at us. I slammed my foot on the ground and caused a minor earthquake. The Sekbeist Overlord merely skipped off the ground and glided through the air, but that was when Tora tucked in her fists, gathered the wind, and thrust them forward. A tornado slammed into our foe. I thought maybe that would work, but then I saw how the element was dissolving before it reached him.

“No good.” I shook my head. “He’s just negating our attacks.”

“Well, fuck me sideways.”

“I’ll be more than happy to do that later.”

“It was a figure of fucking speech!”